


Creeping Ambition

by Mara



Category: Firefly, Vorkosigan Saga - Bujold
Genre: Community: multiverse5000, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 23:26:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mara/pseuds/Mara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ivan Vorpatril and the crew of Firefly. Oh dear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Creeping Ambition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Grey_Bard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grey_Bard/gifts).



> This is a pinch-hit for the Multiverse 2005 ficathon, written for Grey Bard. Hope you like it! (I cheated a bit and the story's got less Simon than I originally intended. I hope Grey Bard will forgive me--I followed my muses and wrote fast.)
> 
> Chinese (from http://fireflychinese.home.att.net/):  
> Shagwa: idiot  
> Mei mei: little sister

Ivan stared at the gray walls of his escape pod morosely. If it weren't for the duty that Miles was so attached to, he could be at home right now, lazing around the barracks, going out in the evenings to visit the high spots of Vorbarr Sultana.

But instead of beautiful brunettes admiring his uniform, there was only him and this escape pod with no fuel. Since the pod had plummeted through some kind of weird space anomaly, who knew *when* Miles would find him.

Sighing, Ivan went back to distracting himself by trying to remember the name of every girl he'd danced with. There was Karen and Sa--

A sudden thump against the side made Ivan jump to turn on the monitor screens.

"Whoa!" he yelped as the pickup showed an unshaven cheek. The cheek backed away to reveal an unsavory man in work clothes whose face was contorted in a snarl as he looked at something off-screen.

Ivan wished for sound. His heart nearly stopped when the view was obscured by an eye. The eye blinked several times and pulled back to reveal a wide-eyed young woman with long dark hair and a fey expression. Ivan shivered.

Taking a deep breath, he let his heart settle back into its normal rhythm and triggered the pod to open.

"Hi," he said cheerfully as he climbed out, trying not to snag his uniform on the edge, "thanks so much for--" He faced a row of guns. "--rescuing me?"

"Who in tarnation are you?" the closest man asked, his gun unwavering. "I've never seen a ship like this."

"Uh." Ivan blinked. "I'm Captain Lord Ivan Vorpatril of Barrayar. And you are?"

"We'll ask the questions," the first man he'd seen growled.

"Doc, you ever heard of a Barrayar?" the captain asked without turning his head.

A man with delicate features standing off to the side--happily gunless--shook his head. "No, I haven't."

"I've never heard of it either," an absolutely gorgeous dark-skinned woman said. Ivan was momentarily distracted by her beauty, but her expression clearly said 'Try anything and I'll rip your head off for my trophy case.'

Suddenly what they'd said registered. "What do you mean 'Where's Barrayar?' We're not exactly everybody's idea of a tourist destination, but how can you not have heard of Barrayar? Big fight with Komarr over a wormhole? Isolated? Civil war a few decades ago? Backwater planet with an emperor?" He looked around, but only one face didn't show confusion: the strange girl.

"Not the same," she said solemnly. "Lost in the branches, tiny leaf floating. But a leaf can make ripples."

"River," the first man said, his tone a warning.

She turned. "Not supposed to be here, Captain." Wandering toward Ivan, she began to circle him. "Overshadowed always."

The captain growled. "Doc, get her out of here!"

River laughed and skipped away, dashing up a metal catwalk with the very pretty man who was apparently a doctor in pursuit. Ivan's jaw hung down as he watched them go, before finally remembering the guns pointed at him.

The woman's gun now pointed toward the ground.

"Zoe," the captain said.

"River's not afraid of him, sir. I don't think he's a danger to us. She may be crazy, but you can't deny she knows things."

The captain groaned. "I s'pose you've got a point. Okay, guns down."

"Mal!" the other man said.

"Easy there, Jayne. I'm not turning us over to the Alliance here." The captain turned a shrewd look on him. "Am I?"

Ivan held his hands in plain view. "I can assure you that I am not at all affiliated with any Alliance. And you just saved my life."

"But you *are* military."

"Well, yes. The Barrayaran military. Unless you're Cetagandan, I've no quarrel with you." Or, Ivan thought as he looked around the dusty, run-down cargo hold, maybe they were from Jackson's Whole and he was in *really* deep trouble.

The captain and Zoe exchanged an odd look. "Where's Cetaganda?"

Ivan felt the kind of sinking feeling in his stomach that usually followed Miles saying 'Don't worry, I've got a plan.' "Uh, I don't suppose you could drop me off on Beta, could you?"

Three blank expressions met his hopeful one.

"Okay, if you just get me to Earth, I can arrange some payment for your trouble."

Blank expressions turned scornful.

"Ain't nobody on Earth no more," the man named Jayne said with a snort. "Any shagwa knows about Earth-that-was."

Ivan closed his eyes for an instant. "Oh no. Oh no. My mother's going to kill me."

Zoe laughed and the captain stared. "Your mother?" he asked.

Ivan moaned. "I swore I'd be home for Winterfair. Swore on everything I hold dear that this was a routine mission even if Miles *was* going along. She told me if I wasn't home in time, she'd make sure none of the pretty girls would ever dance with me again."

Jayne gasped. "Your mother can do that?"

Leaning against the escape pod, Ivan thought about crying. "You don't know my mother. And she's not going to accept 'sucked into another time or dimension' as an excuse, believe me."

The captain put a hand on his gun. "You don't look all that worried about getting back."

Ivan waved a hand, calculating the number of weeks left until he was doomed. "Oh, my cousin Miles will find me. Eventually. Knowing him, it'll be a week too late to save me from my mother's wrath, of course."

Zoe stared at him. "Your...cousin will find you, even if you've traveled into another dimension."

"Uh-huh." Ivan shrugged. "You don't know my cousin. He accidentally acquired command of an entire mercenary fleet once. And that was *before* he got any training or experience."

"A mercenary fleet," the captain said.

"Yup," Ivan said. "So, have you got anything to eat?"

* * *

Over a meal so bad it made Barrayaran military rations palatable, Ivan got a summary of local history.

"Definitely a different universe," he said to the adorably naïve engineer, Kaylee. "Time travel would have been better."

"D'you think so?" she asked, screwing up her face in thought.

"Well, if--"

"Kaylee, I ain't paying you to jaw with useless cargo. I pay you to keep the ship running." The captain stood in the doorway, glaring at Ivan like a brother who'd found his sister kissing a boy. Right. This one was obviously off-limits.

Ivan eased back in his seat and did his best to look harmless--fortunately, he'd had a lot of practice at that.

Kaylee grinned at both of them impartially and scampered out of the room, calling "Yes, Cap'n" over her shoulder.

Ivan continued to look harmless, while the captain scowled at him. "What am I going to do with you?"

"I have no idea," Ivan said in all honesty.

* * *

Several hours later, the captain--whose named turned out to be Reynolds--practically frogmarched Ivan into the small infirmary, where the doctor he'd seen briefly in the cargo bay looked up. "Is our new passenger injured? That's practically a record, Captain."

"He's not injured. And he's not a passenger. He's deadweight until he can come up with something useful to do."

"Hey," Ivan protested. "I offered to spell your pilot. All he had to do was teach me a little about this ship."

The captain sniffed. "Wash kicked him out and said he'd sic Zoe on 'im if he ever touched his baby again."

The doctor coughed into his hand as Ivan tried to argue about the pilot's assessment of his flying ability.

"Doc, you're in charge of babysitting," the captain said, ignoring Ivan as he turned and marched out.

"Simon Tam," the doctor said, holding out his hand. "And the young lady you met earlier is my sister, River."

"I'm pleased to meet you," Ivan said, shaking his hand. "Your sister is..."

"Crazy?" Simon suggested bitterly.

"I was going to say unique. Actually, she'd fit in fairly well in my family, from what I saw. We'd tell everyone she takes after Mad Yuri's side of the family and as long as my mother or Cordelia was looking after her, nobody would dare say anything. In fact, as long as Mark and Miles were around, I doubt anyone would even notice. I'm probably the *least* eccentric person in my family."

"Oh." Simon blinked and looked over Ivan's shoulder.

Thanks to that warning, Ivan didn't jump when a voice said "Not as dumb as you look."

Simon covered his eyes. "Mei mei!"

River circled around to stare into Ivan's eyes. "Go-between. Among. Through. Wouldn't have tried at all if not for him."

Ivan frowned at her. Telepaths were just disturbing, no doubt about that. "Are there many people like you around here?"

She smiled and didn't respond.

"It's possible," Simon said. "They might have done to other people what they did to her."

Ivan wrinkled his nose. "Someone did it on purpose? Was it this Alliance?"

Simon nodded, touching his sister's arm lightly as she meandered around the small room, peering at the various tools.

Ivan tried to imagine how Simon must feel. He didn't have a sister, but what if someone had mucked around with one of the Koudelkas? His stomach hurt. A lot.

River stopped in front of him again. Standing on her tiptoes, she kissed his cheek. "Lucky you don't. Might have turned out like the vat brother. Bad luck."

Then she climbed onto a counter and began to hum to herself.

"Vat brother?" Simon asked.

"I do--oh. Oh. She means Mark."

"Mark?"

Sighing, Ivan leaned against a bed and considered how to explain Mark Vorkosigan. "Mark is a clone of my cousin Miles. See, these Komarran rebels wanted to replace Miles with someone loyal to them. He had to be a perfect duplicate, so every time Miles got hurt, they hurt Mark."

Simon shook his head. "That's awful."

Ivan rested his chin on his fists. "I forgot to mention that Miles' mother was hit by a teratogen while she was pregnant, so his bones were really brittle until they were all replaced by synthetics. And Miles has always tended to do the most dangerous possible thing at all times."

Swallowing, Simon looked down.

"Yeah, it's pretty much as bad as you think." Ivan sighed. "But now that Mark is married to Kareen Koudelka--lucky dog--he's really much better. And with Kareen and his mother taking care of him, I'm not surprised."

Simon stared at him.

"Oh yes, Cordelia and Aral took him under their wings as soon as they found him. He needed major psychiatric help, but they couldn't have done anything else."

"Let me get this straight," Simon said. "Your aunt and uncle adopted their son's clone, who'd been born in order to kill their son?"

"Mm-hmm. They call him Miles' brother, not his clone." Ivan remembered his first meeting with Mark, and the last time he'd seen him, about three months ago, happily married and a man of business. "Mark was supposed to kill Miles and then kill Aral so he could be Count Vorkosigan. Then he was supposed to become Emperor."

Shaking his head, Simon smiled. "You may be right and your family may be eccentric, but they sound admirable as well."

Ivan shrugged. "I suppose. Once Miles had saved Barrayar for the fifth time, I stopped counting."

Simon shook his head and River hummed the Barrayaran Imperial March. Ivan was impressed: He hadn't even realized he *knew* the entire song.

* * *

It took a few days, but gradually everyone got used to having Ivan around. He cleaned things and made a mess of their food rations trying to cook and was a halfway decent shot, all things considered. Wash still refused to let him near Serenity's controls, but Captain Reynolds warmed up to him after he charmed his way past a guard and saved them the trouble of shooting anyone.

The take from *that* was going to keep everyone fed for a month, and Ivan officially graduated from cargo to supercargo, in charge of schmoozing with customers who might not be entirely used to dealing with uncouth criminals. Inara was unimpressed by his charms, but perfectly willing to let him take over some of her tasks as a go-between.

Ivan suspected that his superior officers back on Barrayar might not be thrilled if they found out he'd taken up with smugglers, but sometimes pragmatism had to win out, didn't it?

So he did whatever he needed to do to survive in this very strange universe until someone came to get him.

* * *

Ivan leaned against the wall and idly polished the tools he held in his hand. "How long until we reach the planet?" he asked.

Fingers groped out from under the machinery. "Another day or so," Kaylee said. "You got the small spanner there?" He put it in her hand. "Thanks. Now, you were telling me all about how Miles met Ekaterin and he fell in love and stuff?"

"Oh yeah." Ivan grinned. "But the best part is when they got back to Barrayar and Miles decided he needed to woo her. But he didn't want her to *know* he was wooing her..."

* * *

Nobody shot at them when they landed on New Providence, which was apparently unusual. Ivan crossed his fingers that things stayed that way, since he wasn't really in the mood to practice his shooting skills quite so soon. After one quick trip to deliver their stolen cargo as well as some legitimate items, everyone adjourned to enjoy their well-deserved profits.

Ivan found himself sitting at a table watching Zoe and Wash cuddle and whisper in the other person's ears. He turned away and watched Captain Reynolds take a long drink from his beer-like substance. "So," the captain said, "this cousin of yours ended up taking on a whole planet, huh?"

Ivan looked up from the drink he was trying to avoid drinking; he *liked* what few brain cells he had left. "Hmm? Which time? Oh, Shepherd Book told you about the time on Jackson's Whole."

"Yeah, he said it was a story I might like to hear. It's not edifying or educational or something, is it?"

Ivan snorted and pushed the drink away. "Not at all, I promise. You see, Miles was on a relatively simple ImpSec mission to Jackson's Whole to nab this geneticist who'd agreed to defect to Barrayar. But there was a small problem: Her name was Taura."

The captain laughed. "There's always a woman involved, ain't there?"

Ivan coughed, grateful he hadn't been drinking. "Well, yes. But not in the way you're thinking..."

* * *

The next day, Ivan went with Simon to negotiate for medical supplies and vitamins, which meant a long hot ride to the next town, since the ship was busy elsewhere. Ivan took the opportunity to ask some of the questions he'd been storing up.

"So who leads the rebels, the Browncoats now?" Ivan asked as his horse trotted along, kicking up yellow dust.

Simon shot him a strange look. "Nobody. They lost the war."

"That's it? There's no rebellion? I haven't been here that long, but it seems like a government that likes to experiment on people is worth rebelling against." Ivan thought about Barrayaran history. "My planet had some insane rulers, but we got rid of them eventually."

"I don't know," Simon said slowly. "I don't know that many of the former rebels personally, but the people of the Inner Worlds are...not content, but unwilling to take any chances. They're afraid of change."

Ivan glanced at him, watching his sit the horse like an aristocrat used to riding to the hunt. "Someone you know?"

"My father." Simon bit the words off.

"Not a revolutionary, is he?"

Simon shook his head. "That's why I'm here. He couldn't, or wouldn't, save River."

"My father was killed in the course of trying to evict a particularly loathsome ruler," Ivan said with no real emotion. After all, he'd never known the man except through his mother. Count Vorkosigan had been more of a father than anyone else. "I'd call Miles a revolutionary, but that would be like calling an elephant a mouse."

"And what are you?"

Ivan watched the trees and bushes and more trees pass for a while. "I'm the grunt," he said finally. "I do the heavy lifting for Miles and ImpSec, stand around and look good, that kind of thing."

This time, the look Simon shot him was amused.

Ivan shrugged. "Well, I don't have the ambition or position to be a count, the brains to be a tactician, or the money to be in business. Being Miles' shadow has worked for me so far, even if I do face death a little more frequently than most people."

"River thinks you're important, you know." Simon frowned. "I can't make out what she means by that."

"I guess we'll see, won't we?"

* * *

There was just enough room for everyone in Serenity's mess if people didn't mind being a little crowded, which was why it was unusual for everyone to be there at once. But they were in deep space, three days from an inhabited planet or even an uninhabited outpost, and the mess was a natural gathering spot for people feeling the loneliness of space.

It started with just Ivan and Zoe, the former telling the latter a tale of Miles' first space adventure. The rest of the crew straggled in as Ivan's tale wove on and most were pretending not to listen, but you could have heard a pin drop as he continued the story.

"At that point, things were rolling so fast, I don't know how he kept up. He was juggling the Dendarii, his family, the other mercenaries, and all the Barrayarans he'd picked up along the way. But he..."

* * *

It was eight weeks after he'd been picked up by Serenity that a familiar face appeared on the comm screen.

"Ivan, how the hell did you manage *this*?" Miles was scowling, but Ivan knew he didn't mean it. "Even for you, getting thrown into another universe is pretty talented. We're going to keep the university busy for a century trying to figure this out."

"Miles!" Ivan leapt up. "You're here!"

"Of course I'm here. Gregor insisted I had to bring you back for some reason. I think it had to do with your mother complaining that you'd missed Winterfair." Miles' grin broke through.

Everyone looked at Ivan. "I told you," he said with a shrug. "*Everyone* listens to my mother. Including Imperial auditors. And the Emperor."

\--not the end--

75 years later:

The bedroom held none of the newest, fanciest toys--no AIs, no teachcomps, none of the latest games. But it had obviously been decorated with love, from the well-worn stuffed bear to the shelves full of old-fashioned books.

The little girl rested her head on her mother's shoulder, eyes half-closed as she was carried in. "Will you tell me four stories tonight, Mommy?"

Her mother chuckled as she tucked the girl into bed and sat down next to her. "You know the rules. It's two stories at bedtime. What would you like to hear first? I could read you the new book your grandmother sent about the Browncoats. It's very good."

The girl shook her head and snuggled the bear closer. "Read that one second. First I want to hear about Count Miles and how he saved the beautiful princess from her mean husband."

"Certainly, dear. Once upon a time, there was a brave man named Miles. Miles was born very small so he realized he had to be smart--"

\--end--


End file.
